August 24, 2026
In America, a sad Monkey’s Point of View. It’s all about the TV set.
Hi there, my name is Moe. I’ve been sitting on the back of my owner’s family sofas for nearly seventy-five years now! I am one of the more fortunate handmade stuffed sock monkeys because I have been owned by multiple generations of the same loving family who have always taken good care of me. Some of my handmade cousins have not been so lucky. And my factory-made cousins have had it even worse. They have been passed around or sold to who knows how many different owners. Some have even been discarded or placed in attic storage bins. How sad!
My life on the back of a variety of different sofas over the years has generally been a pretty good life. Consisting mostly of just watching TV. From my perspective, everything that happens in the world is because of the TV set. Television is my window to the outside world. The TV is my world! And as far as I can tell, the TV set controls the world.
And oh, how TVs have changed! I fondly remember the good old vacuum tube, black-and-white TV days in the 1950s. Watching Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, and The Lone Ranger were some of the best years of my life! Everything was just simpler back then. From my point of view, the TV set is what makes things happen. Thanks to TV, the world wars had ended, and the world was at peace. Everyone just got along. The fun and frivolity of the boob tube era had arrived.
I couldn’t believe it when color TV came out. Who would have known a peacock was so colorful? The wonderful world of color was an enjoyable eye-opener. That was, until the late 1960s and early 1970s came along, when so many horrifying news stories dominated my owner family’s TV viewing. TV brought those terrible scenes right into our living room! Race riots, college campus demonstrations, nationwide protests, political assassinations, and yet another war were all shown on the color TV. And I watched it all from my perch on the back of my sofa. Those were the worst TV-watching years of my life. I blame our new TV set for that. Bad TV! I wished my owners/family would have burned that color TV so that America could go back to peace and calm.
TV viewing greatly improved after the old wooden console color TV years. In the late 70s and into the 80s, as the Super Pittsburgh Steelers came roaring onto the screen, it felt like nothing else mattered and all was “right” with America. At least here in Pittsburgh. I can’t tell you how many times the excitement and thrills from my owners almost knocked me off the sofa!
And then Along came the big-screen projection TVs in the 80s and 90s, making my world even better. Those TVs were huge, like a refrigerator-sized huge! The picture quality wasn’t that great, but it was BIG! My owners seemed less inclined to watch the news shows and were more into watching some great Betamax or VHS movies. What an improvement over the terrible 60s and 70s. We’ve come a long way, baby, from those bulky cathode ray tube days.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, plasma TVs were invented and then, even better yet, flat-screen LCD TVs came out in the 2000s. Such beautiful picture quality for the many fun comedy and drama shows of the day. Our TV set was making the world smile. I could watch “Friends,” Seinfeld,” or “X-Files” all day if my owners would let me. All they would have had to do was leave the TV turned on when they went to work.
Now here we are today in the 2020s with an even bigger flat-screen TV hanging on the living room wall, right across from my sofa. The new TV shows are shown in larger-than-life pictures and clarity. Unfortunately, my owners have once again become preoccupied with horrific news shows. CNN, Fox News, and their ilk. Political news has become a dominant part of their viewing again. And I hate it! We need a new TV set.
Just take a look again at my monkey face picture. You can see the smile is gone. Replaced with a look of serious concern. And my tail just doesn’t know which way to flop! What I am seeing on TV now is not pretty. There are just way too much greed, cruelty, vindictiveness, and divisiveness in America today. And it has even filtered into my owner’s family. At one time, it was incomprehensible that parents, brothers, and sisters from the same family could be so divided and turn angry with each other because of divisive political views, opinions, and misinformed beliefs that TV was now showing. Nobody in America benefits from that. What happened to the TV set that caused this happen in America? What has the TV set done to America? This has to stop. Changes must be made. Even if the TV set has to go. Oh, if I could only read, I’d pick up a book and give up TV altogether. These years are the 2nd worst time of my life, and I am afraid they will become the worst ever!!
I almost wish my place in the home could be moved from the sofa and relegated to the quiet peace and tranquility of the attic where TV set doesn’t control the world. But then, that head-in-the-sand ostrich approach will not make the problems go away. As an aging sock monkey, the best I can hope for now is that we get a whole new generation of even bigger, better, and smarter TVs that care for us and care for what is going on in America and fix everything.
Perhaps something like living room 3D holograms. Maybe they will bring about a welcome positive change in the way we view the world and life on American TV. Maybe new advanced, sophisticated TVs can bring back sanity to America by showing the future with compassion, togetherness, and reasons for hope.
I know my wishes and dreams for a better American TV future might just be far-fetched pipe dreams. But I’ll never give up my place on this old sofa and never quit dreaming about smarter TV sets and a better America that each new generation of TVs have brought to the world.
However, let’s be honest. There’s only so much WE, THE MONKEYS can do from our small, isolated place in the world, other than watch TV. So, I could use your help, please. YOU, THE PEOPLE, the owners of sock monkeys and everything else, have to do SOMETHING to bring about positive change in America. Stop monkeying around! It’s all up to you now. Let’s bring back enjoyable TV sets that create a compassionate, prosperous, caring America. Am I just being a silly monkey? I hope not, because I truly believe there just has to be a better TV. Bring it on, turn it on, and tune in!
Thanks for hearing me out.
Love Ya’ll,
Moe
Robert Kuhn 